Availability

Neighborhood

Danbury is part of both Fairfield County, Connecticut, and the New York Tri-State area and is only 39 miles away from New York City. Named after Danbury in Essex, England, Danbury is Fairfield County’s fourth most populous city. “The Danbury area’s economy continues to outperform the rest of the state and stand apart as an oasis,” economist Don Klepper-Smith said. Danbury’s labor market area has the lowest unemployment rate as well as the highest year-over-year job growth in the state, according to Klepper-Smith. Danbury is home to Fortune 500 company Praxair, which is one of the world’s largest industrial gas suppliers.

Danbury Office Space | Lease Data and Trends

The Danbury commercial real estate submarket houses more than 3.5 million square feet of office space inventory. Danbury is the tightest real estate market in Fairfield County, with a vacancy rate of less than 5%.

Those interested in renting office space in Danbury will find rental prices averaging around $20 per square foot, which is notably lower than the Fairfield County average of $37 per square foot. Asking rents for Class A office space hover around $21 per square foot, while the 25% of inventory that is Class B space leases for around $19 per square foot. Final lease prices vary significantly depending on a range of factors, including lease length, building quality (class, age, location, amenities), and size.

What Our Brokers Say About Danbury Office Space

Danbury is 44.3 square miles (or 115 square kilometers) in size. The nearby Berkshire Mountains and Candlewood Lake offer some beautiful sights and interesting places to explore in the area. Danbury contains a variety of different neighborhoods such as City Center, Shelter Rock, Germantown, Great Plain & Stadley Rough, Candlewood, and Long Ridge. The city has several places that have been added to the National Register of Historic Places; the last three to join the list are Tarrywile, Union Station, and Richter House.

Danbury is a very safe place to live and offers a relaxed environment. Although Danbury itself has an excellent economy and plenty of places to work, people also like to live here and commute to New York City. Some of the largest industries in Danbury are production, transportation, business services, government, and hospitality. City Center Danbury’s website offers additional information about doing business in the area. The organization offers city tax incentives, supportive zoning regulations, and reduced permit and application fees. Just this year, more than $100 million has been invested along Main Street.

The average commute to work for people living in Danbury is 26 minutes. Carpooling and public transportation are both common choices for getting to work and getting around. The city is part of the MTA Metro-North Railroad, while goes to Grand Central Station in Manhattan. In addition, the Providence and Worcester Railroad and the Housatonic Railroad offer freight services. There are four Amtrak train stations within 30 miles of the city center. The Housatonic Area Regional Transit (HART) provides local bus service for Danbury. The city also has its own airport, Danbury Municipal Airport (DXR), for convenient flight travel. Danbury has two main highways (Interstate 84 and U.S. Route 7), and several secondary highways (U.S. Route 6, Newtown Road, Route 53, Route 37, and Route 39), providing travelers with many options for getting around by car.

Once you figure out where to get office space and get set up in the new place, it’s time to find out where is best to go when you want to get out of the office. Whether it’s for a business lunch, a meeting, or an after-work excursion, Danbury offers a variety of cuisines to try. Visit Barbarie’s Black Angus Grill, Pho Vietnam, Rosy Tomorrows, Mezon Tapas Bar and Restaurant, or Ki Asian Bistro and Sushi.

Danbury also has plenty of activities to do as a company or with family. Hike Bear Mountain Reservation, the Old Quarry Nature Center’s trails, Tarrywile Mansion and Park, and Ives Trail to see some of the beautiful nature in the area. Danbury is home to a long list of parks, including Bear Mountain Park, Candlewood Town Park, Elmwood Park, and Joseph Sauer Memorial Park. Two of Danbury’s main sports for spectators are ice hockey and baseball. The city is home to the Danbury Trashers, part of the United Hockey League, and the Danbury Westerners, which are members of the New England Collegiate Baseball League.

Danbury, CT History

In 1685, colonists from the Norwalk and Stamford areas first settled in Danbury. Back then, Danbury was called Pahquioque after the Pahquioque Native Americans. Samuel Benedict, one of the first settlers, purchased an area known as Paquiack—which means “open plain” or “cleared land”—from the Native Americans in 1685. Benedict, along with his brothers James Benedict, James Beebe, and Judah Gregory, named the town Swampfield because of the wetlands. The town received a formal patent in 1702.

Danbury is still sometimes called Hat City because in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, it was the center of the nation’s hat industry. Zadoc Benedict opened Danbury’s very first hat shop in 1780. The shop only had three employees, who produced about 18 hats each week. Only 20 years later, the city as a whole was producing 20,000 hats each year, which was more than any other city in the nation. By 1859, the city was making 1.5 million hats per year.

The Continental Army used Danbury as a military supply depot during the American Revolution. Today, the City of Danbury’s seal has the motto Restituimus (meaning “We have restored”) in memory of the Loyalist army’s burning and looting the city in 1777.

The Connecticut Legislature gave the Fairfield County Railroad a rail charter in 1835, though the first railroad line in the city didn’t open until 1852. The original railroad had two trains that took travelers to Norwalk in 75 minutes. In 1822, Danbury was incorporated as a borough; then it was re-incorporated as a city on April 19, 1889.